Gray Moodliar, a firm of attorneys that has investigated some of Nelson Mandela Bay’s most sensitive corruption cases, has launched an urgent court challenge to the metro council’s decision to cut ties with it, says a Daily Dispatch report. In what the report terms 'explosive court papers', the firm accuses Mayor Mongameli Bobani of taking an unhealthy and unlawful interest in the matters they were handling, particularly with regard to the recouping of money from those implicated in corruption and irregular contracts around the integrated public transport system (IPTS), as well as in disciplinary and court procedures against implicated officials. This had culminated in the decision to boot out the firm, after it had provided legal services to the Bay for two decades, and to withdraw its mandates in all the cases it was involved in, including the IPTS ones. Sureshni Moodliar, who owns a 51% share in the firm, said in an affidavit that the cases were in line with a recommendation that the money be recouped from the various entities, employees and service providers after a forensic audit in 2015 found irregularities totalling millions arising from suspected fraud and graft. In April, the firm was informed by acting municipal manager Peter Neilson of a council resolution terminating their mandates involving some 50 court cases. Moodliar maintains that the decision to terminate their mandates was unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional as it had been made in breach of council’s standing orders and had no rational basis. She said the mayor had in a meeting accused the firm of ‘milking the city’, and said that it was a ‘white company’ and a waste of taxpayers’ money. Moodliar said this was false and defamatory. She was not white and owned 51% of the firm.

Moodliar says the cancelled mandates include three claims against businessman Fareed Fakir involving the recovery of some R33m. According to the Daily Dispatch report, she hints at a relationship between Fakir and Bobani, saying there was an internal audit report from 2015 which ‘addressed the relationship’. She says she cannot disclose the report contents as it was given to her on a privileged basis. However, she invites Bobani to make the report available to the court. She also points to a police affidavit used in support of an application to seize Bobani’s computer which alleges he had received more than R700 000 in payments from companies in which Fakir was involved. Moodliar said Bobani had taken an active interest in these matters ‘beyond that permitted by the Municipal Finance Management Act’. Bobani rubbishes the claim that the firm had been removed as an approved legal service provider or that the SLA had been repudiated. He says in an answering affidavit that it was simply a case of withdrawing the cases in which Gray Moodliar held mandates. The matter will be argued on 30 May.